"A Person not a Principle"

People who study theology can be tempted to overestimate the importance of that study. Certainly, an intelligent person who is able to understand physics or the development of the Russian Empire should also make an effort to understand Scripture and the content of faith on a comparable level. But none of this study should ever fool us about the essential core of being a Christian: following an inspiring real person.

The call of the first disciples in today’s Gospel reading from Mark makes clear that Jesus did not recruit them from a theological school or any kind of university. They were fishermen, basically simple men who lived by the work of their hands. That which they left everything to follow was not a set of principles or some theology but an impressive person. They had undoubtedly heard and seen him before but now, in response to his call, they abandon everything to follow him.

Human beings are not moved by principles and theories as they are by a fellow human being who exercises some attraction and who exemplifies great ideals and truths of the heart. In ordinary secular life (if life is ever simply secular!) we do our best out of love for someone or loyalty to someone. That is what inspires us in depressing moments or difficult times: the thought of this person I love, this person whose presence quickens my pulse and makes all the pains of life seem trivial or at least puts them in a larger perspective.

The martyrs did not die for an abstract principle but out of love for a person, the Lord Jesus. Prayerful reflection on the Gospels and all they proclaim about Jesus helps us recognize and rejoice in the fact that our faith is not an intellectual exercise – accepting some truths – but a matter of following an inspiring person who reveals the depths of who we truly are as beloved daughters and sons of God and the glorious future we will inherit as we make our way through this beautiful but terribly fractured world. The Christian is not a believer in a collection of truths but the earnest and dedicated follower of an incomparable and all-lovable individual, Jesus the Christ, our saving Lord. Praise God!